Housing Market Monitor

Price Tumble Accelerates, Homeownership Plunges

Price Tumble Accelerates, Home Ownership Plunges

January 30, 2008

By Dean Baker

"The homeownership rate is likely to fall below its 2001 level this year."

The news on the housing market keeps getting worse. The
latest data from Case-Shiller index shows prices dropping even more rapidly;
the homeownership rate had a record year over year plunge, and the vacancy rate
for ownership units crept back up to its record high. In addition, foreclosure
rates soared to yet another record, while housing starts and new homes sales
showed record annual slumps for 2007. The housing market is still far from
anything resembling a bottom.

The Case-Shiller numbers were by far the most important news
for the week. This index is the most carefully constructed measure of house
prices available, since it measures the change in prices of homes that have
been resold, controlling for changes in the mix of homes. The November data
showed house prices in the 20-city index dropping 7.7 percent from last
November. However, over the last quarter, prices have been in a virtual free
fall.

The index shows prices dropping at a 16.2 percent annual
rate for the quarter. This is consistent with the 17.2 percent drop shown in
the mean existing home price over the last quarter. (The Case-Shiller index
averages prices over three months.) If this rate of price decline is sustained
over a year, it implies a loss of housing wealth of $3.2 trillion. (This is a
nominal decline, so the real drop is even larger.) If just 10 percent of this
loss shows up on the books of financial institutions, the write-downs would be
$320 billion, almost four times the size of the write-downs seen to date.

The rate of price decline in many of the former hot markets
is truly striking. Over the last quarter prices declined at an 11.2 percent
annual rate in Washington, a 16.6 percent annual rate in Tampa, and a 24.5
percent annual rate in Miami. In the west, prices in Los Vegas are dropping at
a 24.8 percent rate, in Phoenix at a 24.9 percent rate, in San Francisco at a
22.2 percent rate, in Los Angeles at a 24.7 percent rate and in San Diego at a
27.0 percent rate.

The housing vacancy data gives no reason to believe that
even with these price declines the market is about to level off. The vacancy
rate for ownership units edged back up from 2.7 percent to its previous peak of
2.8 percent. Prior to 2004, this measure had never risen above 1.9 percent in
any prior housing slump. The rental vacancy rate edged down by 0.2 pp to 9.6
percent. This is down 0.8 pp from the 10.4 percent peak in the first quarter of
2004, but still far higher than previous peaks. There are more than twice as
many ownership units as rental units.

The homeownership data showed a 0.4 pp decline from the
third quarter and a 1.1 pp decline from the fourth quarter of 2006. The 67.8
percent homeownership rate is the lowest since the second quarter of 2002. With
the foreclosure rate hitting a new record in the fourth quarter, up 75 percent
from the fourth quarter of 2006 and 35 percent from the third quarter, it is
virtually certain that the homeownership rate will continue to fall.

It is very likely that the homeownership rate in 2008 will
fall below the 67.5 percent rate at the start of 2001 when President Bush took
office.

New home sales dropped 4.7 percent in December, putting them
40.7 percent below their year ago level. For 2007 as a whole, sales were down
26.4 percent from 2006, and 39.7 percent from their 2005 level. Sales in the
west were down 49.4 percent from the 2005 level. Housing starts were down 8.1
percent in December and 34.4 percent from December 2006. Starts for the year
were down 25.2 percent from 2006 and 33.5 percent from 2005.

The latest data raise the possibility of a sharp quick
correction. Plunging house prices and soaring foreclosure rates may cut off the
flow of credit to the market, further depressing prices. This would create the
basis for a recovery, but the quick loss of $8 trillion in housing wealth will
be painful.

Dean Baker is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C. (www.cepr.net). CEPR's Housing Market Monitor is published weekly and provides an incisive breakdown of the latest indicators and developments in the housing sector.